XIX.
HE rode with bent head, asking over at length
Had it been superhuman and splendid, his strength,
As a god s, or but as the inhuman brute force
Of a giant, crass blindness its generant source?
One could equably bear it, the being more strong
Than the rest of one s race, if there did not belong
As a penalty keen of that coveted state
The need to be strong for all others, to wait
The shock of necessitous cries, to assume
The burdens of many, to hasten their doom
Or avert it, to settle their right and their wrong,
Ah, weary the duties of one who is strong!
Ah, well, it was over! that sweet summer’s joy
Was put out of his life like a child s broken toy,-
His life? could he call it a life, where misrule
Was the one constant factor? where he, doting fool,
Ever desperate struggled the claims to adjust
Twixt claimants bejeweled and matted with dust,
And where if he left but one moment the helm
Anarchy s tempest leaped wild to o erwhelm,
Was it life, in the tumult and torment whereof
Never he saw or should see again Love?
He rode by the haunts she had hallowed, the hills,
The gold-gleaming woods with their little white rills,
How it had pleased her, whene er through the dark
A fire-fly wafted its quivering spark!
On he rode, growing ever more wearily sad,
Till suddenly out of the gloaming a lad
